I'm John Moyles.

I'm a Denver, Colorado-based executive, offering more than 20 years of success and expertise as a high-performing leader, strong manager, team player, consensus builder, and effective communicator that translates organizational vision into measurable results that have maximized business performance, had material positive impact on cost and revenue, and have increased productivity and efficiencies across an organization.

Although I live in Denver, I am open to relocation to San Diego metro area.

Or you can jump right to my LinkedIn profile by clicking below

About Me

I'm a Denver, Colorado-based executive, offering more than 20 years of success and expertise as a high-performing leader, strong manager, team player, consensus builder, and effective communicator that translates organizational vision into measurable results that have maximized business performance, had material positive impact on cost and revenue, and have increased productivity and efficiencies across an organization.

For the last five years, I’ve held a leadership position at a major Managed Services Provider, working in an environment of public, private, and hybrid cloud solutions. Previous engagements are also in leadership positions focusing on data center, network & server infrastructure, networking, server, & workstation virtualization, and app/web development technology/solutions. For more on my leadership background, see my resume.

I’ve spent my professional career focused on two primary competencies: the first being a skilled strategist (Skills? Go here for my competencies) who works with boards, c-levels, & senior executives engaged in high visibility, impact, and costly strategic initiatives, turning them into workable solutions, executing against plan on-budget/on-time, and then sustaining the results with strong metrics & reporting (Citations? See Testimonials!).

My second primary competency is expertise in leveraging extreme ownership in creating, leading & managing (what's the difference? Please see Leadership Philosophy for my thoughts), and mentoring high performance/accountability teams, through the full program and project lifecycle that delivers, sustains, and reports on the solutions required by the business.

Open to relocation in the San Diego metro area.

Contact Details

Leadership Philosophy

My Leadership Journey in the Age of the Knowledge Worker

A lot of ink has been spilled over the years on the concepts of being a leader. Just as much on Peter Drucker’s concept of the knowledge worker. I’d like to spill a bit more on my own perspective on my journey down the leadership path in the age of the knowledge worker.

To begin with, I firmly believe there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. This is a concept I learned in the military that has translated perfectly into civilian life. A bad leader must always push his teams, a good leader may start off pushing, but with intent and the *ability* to have the teams pulling the leader before long. This matters!

Both kinds of leaders may generate the short-term end result that was needed, but the bad leader will put themselves in the position where their results aren’t sustainable. This is generally manifested as some combination of sub-par work, over the allocated budget, behind set schedules, team burn-out, and high staff turn-over. That creates an additional set of hidden costs that you don’t suffer from good leadership.

How you get to results is just as important as the results. This speaks to stability, sustainability, and reliability – all critical metrics of long term success for the business. So – how do we define a good leader? Read on!

What is a “leader”?

Answering that question requires that we recognize that leadership itself has tactical and strategic elements. I call the tactical element "management". Management by itself is not leadership and vice versa. They are complementary but still separate.

Managing is about tracking value by focusing on the short-term elements of processes and structures. Management is the tactical - keeping track of the details, coordination, and planning.

You must perform the managerial parts of the job fairly, consistently, conservatively, and honestly. If this sounds like I repurposed the adjectives in the last sentence from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) - well, I did: there is clearly an intersection of common needs and thus shareable standards. By taking this approach, you clear the field of uncertainty on the how and the when.

Leadership is creating value by focusing on the long-range perspective of people and results. You must be of high integrity at all times, with an eye towards challenging, inspiring, motivating and innovating - the strategic. Leadership requires you to keep your eyes on the horizon, and keeping your focus there is the primary leadership challenge that you will run into.

As an illustration, and as I am borrowing and repurposing a great deal from Peter Drucker, I will now directly quote him: "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

What is a “knowledge worker” and how do I lead them?

There is a wrinkle on leadership that hasn’t been fully embraced by many of my peers: recognizing that the knowledge worker now rules in the white collar business world. Knowledge works are paid to think for a living – ingest data, react to data, and then produce results from that data. Knowledge workers are not generalist commodities, but highly trained and valuable specialists.

Leading them can be a difficult task – they want to be led by example, not over-managed, and often know more than their supervisors do about their specialty, prefer some level of autonomy, and are often desperate to be heard.

To successfully engage the knowledge worker you must understand their individual strengths, be able to build them into teams with strong purposes with clearly defined and achievable objectives. Nothing will throw off a team of knowledge workers faster than ill-defined, over-simplified, or over-generalized objectives. Good leaders will recognize that the successful result at the end of an endeavor is often found by having framed the need properly at the start.

Going into depth on leading knowledge workers is beyond the scope here, but at a high level:

They are your experts. Don’t guess, ask.

Ensure that the right information/data flows to them. Enable them to self “prospect” where appropriate.

Leverage them as a trusted partner. They want to be a part of the solution, not a drone assigned tasks.

Grant the autonomy to do their work, validate that approach with strong monitoring and metrics.

Find the leaders in the group and cultivate them. Building and mentoring leaders allows for easier delegation of authority when needed.

LEARN from them – not just you as a leader, but encourage the business at all levels to become a learning organization capable of digesting new knowledge. Their viewpoint is unique and valuable. Great insights can be found by mining that viewpoint.

Ultimately to be successful as a leader in the age of the knowledge worker, you must combine the disciplines of management which answers the “how” and the “when” with leadership which answers the “what” and the “why”. Doing so will extend your authority from being one of only title to one of ability and execution.

Where is leadership applied?

Leadership isn’t just expressed in your direct spheres of influence (directs, peers, your leaders, customers) and at specific moments. Instead, you should strive to apply it everywhere and at all times - every interaction, every decision, and every audience. Leadership is something you wear on your sleeve, and it is part of you. You must follow the principle of “esse quam videri”: To be, rather than to seem to be.

In film, there is an effect called the “uncanny valley.” This is the ability of the human eye to easily perceive computer-generated imagery from reality. You want to avoid the leadership version of the “uncanny valley” - it can’t be a persona that you put on for your job. People can and will spot actors playing the part of “Leader”.

How do I get there?

Leadership is a journey, not a destination. Trite, but also true. If great leadership requires your full attention on every interaction, then every interaction carries with the opportunity for success or failure. You need to be able to step back and perform this introspective on yourself on a regular basis. Validate that with those around you – your directs, your peers, and your leaders. Yes – even your directs.

Perhaps most important is feedback from your directs. I’ve had some pushback from other managers and leaders over the years who believe it is a sign of a weakness or pandering to solicit input from your staff. This is a place that I respectfully disagree. You can solicit honest input through dialogue (I’m a huge proponent of the quick 1:1) that allows you to constantly evaluate yourself without running into those issues.

The concept of the introspective as a self-assessment validated by the input of others is a key takeaway. Without it, you are potentially disconnected from the reality of how you are operating as a leader. You must always be evaluating, learning, evolving as a leader. This is also a concept that once mastered, can be leveraged in your evaluations of others.

Core Competencies

See below for my signature leadership strengths and competencies.

Executive Leadership

Business Strategy & Development

Budgeting / P&L / Cost Control

Financial Analysis & Modeling

Risk Management & Mitigation

Business Process Improvement

Program & Project Management

Technology & Business Integration

Team Building & Development

Cross-Functional Team Leadership

Mergers & Acquisitions

M&A Integration Management

Strategic Partner Management

Partner & Vendor Management

Product & Service Development

Product & Service Management

Customer Lifecycle Management

Sales & Marketing Support

Public/Private/Hybrid Cloud

Data Center Architecture

Resume

Synoptek is a Managed Service Provider with a “growth through acquisition” strategy. In the past five years, there have been four acquisitions, with two of them each individually doubling the size (revenue and staff) of the organization - now at $80M/450 staff. This growth has led to two leadership engagements:

Integration: Directly led the company-wide effort to vision and execute the integration of all new assets (property, people, process, technology) into the organization to realize cost & revenue synergies.

Extreme ownership and leadership with the responsibility, accountability, and oversight for the program, involving multiple teams with a peak of 50 employees from all parts of the organization.

Created and sustained executive stakeholder buy-in with every domain and department in the organization.

While work continues, the initial set of projects were completed on time, on budget, and with minimal disruption to the business and customers. Was recognized by the board and the senior executive team as being instrumental in the success of the effort.

Client Advisory: Based on the success of the integration effort, was recruited by the VP of Client Advisory to design, train, and sustain the new charter for the department of 5 directs and 21 staff.

Successfully aligned the business needs of the group to the new charter by designing, achieving buy-in, and then implementing the required processes, tools, training, and key metrics needed.

Re-aligned the department’s new functions and capabilities to the rest of the business; ensured that the cross-functional boundaries and dependencies were understood, documented, and agreed to by the leaders of those departments.

Product & Service Development/Management
Senior Solutions Architect

Critigen is a spin-off of CH2MHill which had a Managed Services Provider division. Worked in that division, directly with the c-level and senior executive team to perform two primary roles for the organization:

Senior Solutions Architect: Was the business’s senior architect, and worked closely with the sales, operational, and finance teams to ensure that customer and sales requirements could be executed inside our four walls using industry and business best practices. Had full ownership and oversight of the service and product catalog. Sustained and improved the product catalog through financial modeling, market positioning, technical documentation and training, sustainability and improvement programs.

Synoptek carved out the Managed Service Provider division from Critigen. Once that was complete, was tasked by the senior executive team to tackle the challenge of service & product consolidation from previous acquisitions that resulted in duplications, inefficiencies, confusion, poor cost control, and lost revenue.

Led the effort to consolidate, unify, and classify the product and service catalog for the business. Collaborated with the executive team and key stakeholders throughout the organization to pinpoint overlaps and gaps within the catalog definitions, processes, technologies, and functions.

Conceptualized and built an SKU profitability model that represented an accurate understanding of true delivery soft and hard costs against various pricing models (market, absorption, penetration, loss-leader, etc.); the business realized increased visibility to true operational margins of products.

Streamlined the sales, operational, and financial systems & processes by consolidating down into a single catalog placed on a single platform in a standardized format.

Reduced number of catalog items by 75%, creating migration plans to move customers and the business into the remaining catalog items; simplifying management and delivery for all domains of the business – sales, operations, finance.

Ensured all remaining catalog items had clear sales strategies, service schedules, and cost & pricing models; this decreased inefficiencies and prevented cost inefficiencies and revenue leakage within the business.

Created cross-functional process models to standardize the marketing, selling, delivering, and operating methods; closed gaps on SLAs/OLAs standards and compliance.

Focused the business strategy and sales approach by identifying and creating eight primary lines of business for the service catalog, as well as defining the value and operational between each pillar.

Worked with finance leadership to align their financial systems and ledger against the pillars and the catalog items in them to allow for a high level of oversight and accountability in tracking sales, revenue, and costs.

The above work set the stage for additional “down-range” efforts:

Streamlined the product delivery system by pinpointing key areas of concern involving vendors, processes, people, and technologies that prevented consistent delivery of a product. Engaged executive stakeholders to create consensus on challenges and win buy-in on moving to solutions.

Re-aligned specific operational teams to support individual pillars through a “Centers of Excellence” framework; led the formation of the leadership team that structured the charter and staff for the new support model.

Performed detailed financial analysis and modeling of the performance of the pillars to determine where the business should should focus future sales efforts. This led to increased sales for the pillars that the business focused on, as well as allowed the business to decrease capital and operating costs on the pillars and services that were pruned back or eliminated. Was a key player in the analysis & modeling, and worked closely with the senior executive team and the finance department to create and execute the go-forward plan based on the analysis.

Worked with the executive marketing, and sales teams to create multi-product whole-stack “bundled” solutions by leveraging identified pillar synergies; decreased sales cycles with new logo customers by leveraging same.

Performed detailed analysis of existing customers against the pillar synergies; allowing the sales and client advisory teams to identify and target on high probability up-sell opportunities.

The work above gained board and c-level professional recognition. Was awarded “Employee of the Year” in 2014 for outstanding leadership and management during the above effort. Based on the leadership, high visibility and success of this work was recruited by the VP of Mergers, Acquisitions, and Integrations to lead the department as his Director.

Management and Technology Consultant

Consultant │ Denver, CO
2004 - 2013

Provided vision and leadership in the development and implementation of IT programs and enterprise information systems for multiple companies to define and focus market strategies, streamline processes, and recognize growth opportunities for the purpose of optimizing effectiveness and cost efficiencies.
Partnered with executive and C-level management teams to achieve stakeholder buy-in and measure organizational success through strong leadership, oversight, KPI metrics, and reporting. Marquee engagements:

Teachers-Teachers.com: Company has more than 1M candidates and 20,000 schools are signed up, with more than 25M annual website views.

Collaborated with TTCM management and staff to restructure and rebuild the LoB application, ensure best operational practices, and enable SLAs and OLAs to be met with high certainty and predictability for the world’s largest education hiring Internet Company.

Created and presented a business case to the executive management team demonstrating the need for and value of experienced IT staff. Secured approval and budget to drive the selection, interviewing, and hiring process.

Secured IT infrastructure and increased reliability to achieve a 99.99% uptime for 8 years with no security breaches.

Optimized launch of the new website through a combination of vision, design, and budget to enhance functionality, usability, and speed improvements, which, in turn, resulted in greater market positioning and customer experience.

Migrated data from the capital expenditure model to an operational model, which accomplished measurable cost savings, including lower operational staffing support costs.

Sprint Mobile: Contracted to manage the build-out and deployment of Sprint’s mobile (4GL) development center in Denver. Duties included coordination with multiple internal teams, vendors, and business units throughout the country to design and implement network/server connectivity and security hardening. Over twenty different technology and budgetary stakeholders were identified during the project, all of which were “won over” to the project through direct personal interaction and relationship building. Coached IT staff members into senior-level roles.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME): The CME is a stock exchange much like the NYSE. Brought on to rescue a stalled web presence project involving all the CME’s core business units - Clearing, Corporate Development, Finance, Legal and Regulatory, Operations, Products & Services, and Technology. At the time of the project, each business unit was independently run, with individual P&Ls. Primary responsibility was achieving consensus from executive management in each business unit, inserting and managing teams throughout the various business units to gather requirements, and then driving the project to success by maintaining the executive relationships while working inside the business units to ensure senior and mid-level management as consulted and informed as to goals and progress.

Newmont Mining Corporation: Duties expanded to making critical path decisions on existing and future deployments for mission-critical intranet applications. Enhanced performance and security by implementing best practice processes in their existing environment. Recommended changes in hiring practices to reduce over-staffing.

Compass Marketing: Contracted to assess the continued use of their current network and server solution. Worked with Compass IT management and staff to identify and pinpoint security, availability and reliability issues. Based on recommendations, client built out a new server farm solution. Was involved in the visioning, design, and implementation of their new solution. A key component of the solution was combining several older physical servers running disparate software into a virtualized solution leveraging VMWare and EMC VNX storage arrays. Trained client SME’s in virtualization.

Sanford Homes: Sanford Homes is a national homebuilder, and has its headquarters in Denver. Contracted to spearhead a major mainframe to intranet integration project. Secured funding from the board, hired the development staff, and completed the project, under budget and on time. Based on performance, responsibilities then expanded to include security and operational oversight of the core infrastructure and involved interfacing with all of Sanford’s operations including sales, construction, and warranty support.

IDV Sports: IDV was a startup venture designed to leverage online content to drive back-end sales. Was brought onboard to complete their line of business internet site. Responsibilities included team management, infrastructure development, change control, and the establishment of a customer facing 24/7/365 tier 1 help desk with an ACD back end. Created processes and controls that resulted in a 45 second ASA and 87% FCR.

Got a Job: Got a Job is a startup company designed to match potential employees with employers in high-turnover verticals (fast food, gas stations, etc.). Contracted to deliver oversight, troubleshoot, and remediate problematic development staffing issues, methodologies, and processes. Implemented industry standards and best practices in code development, re-architected/re-deployed the server farm, and migrated in-house development and server farm teams to the latest releases development and change control software

Vice President of IT/IS
Cofounder

Negotiated and executed a partnership with Sun Microsystems to be the sole provider for implementation of Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) services across the Denver metro area.

Reduced operational costs by 35% by employing a “buck stops here” mentality, which enabled reallocated of spend and allowed R&D as well as growth opportunities to expand outside of the initial niche market.

Built up a team of contracts and employees reaching 15 resources at the peak; created a work culture that inspired personal accountability while capitalizing on individual strengths to facilitate team success.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Cofounder

X2Delta Networks │ Denver, CO
2000 - 2004

Established a startup business delivering ISP and co-location services for more than 60 SMB clients while managing a team of 15 remote and on-site staff.
Held full P&L responsibility and oversaw an operating budget of $5M.

Designed and implemented the primary data center space, power, and access layout, and built/fostered key relationships with several point of presence, power, and cooling providers.

Envisioned, planned, and directed the build-out of the primary high-reliability/availability VMware server farm and co-location space, in addition to overseeing the daily operations of the facility for more than 3 years.

Built a 24/7/365 Help Desk for Tier Level I, II, and III support for deployment, availability, monitoring, maintenance, and issue resolution; integrated control measures to effectively manage employee responsiveness, productivity, and accountability.

Performed around two dozen customer premise to data center moves, either “lift and shift” or physical to virtual.

Director, App & Web Development

Total SumParts │ Leesburg, VA
1999 - 2000

As a direct report to the CEO managed development staff for the complete life cycle development of desktop and web-based applications for enterprise and SMB clients.
Managed personnel to form teams of 5 to 15 people per project with specialized skills in website design and database management; supervised data entry engineers; conducted performance evaluations; set and managed project budgets; coordinated team projects across department boundaries.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Cofounder

C:\ Drive │ Castleton, VA
1995 - 1999

Responsible for creating and managing the Internet and Business Networking services division.
Primary duties included growing the business through direct sales, marketing campaigns, and partnerships.
Secured less than 5% client churn and contract extensions through consistent performance, trust through collaboration, stable operations, and predictable costs.

Network Systems Manager
Partner

On-Site Computers │ Culpeper, VA
1991 - 1995

Partner in a computer service and support company.
Consulted, designed, and implemented network solutions for businesses with 2 to 1000 users.
Developed and implemented risk assessment and migration policies. Worked with IBM, Novell, Microsoft, and Artisoft networks.

Sergeant

United States Marine Corps │ USA
1985 - 1991

Non-commissioned Officer (Sergeant) in the USMC.
Highly decorated, and received the highest possible recommendation for re-enlistment.
Received honorable discharge.

Testimonials

In the two years I have had the opportunity to work with John, I can say without reservation that John is an exceptional leader with tremendous integrity. Not only does John exhibit mastery in his core role, he leads from the front in everything he does, enrolling others in the vision of high performance. His communication style is clear, concise & compelling, and his ability to build teams is a true hallmark. John's rare mix of relationship building, productivity & passion sets a great example for all the teams around him and explains why John is so highly valued, as well as respected within the organization.

Randall Hughes, Vice President of Sales at DVmobile

John’s warm and inviting personality immediately caught my attention upon my becoming part of the Synoptek family through the EarthLink IT Services acquisition. John’s positive attitude, clever sense of humor and an unending willingness to help work together to make his results-driven approach both effective and inspiring. One unique trait that I quickly learned about John is his ability to make informed decisions by quickly sifting through an abundance of information and honing in on the pieces that truly matter. John also consistently leads by example and has mastered the art of holding others accountable. John was one of the main reasons that I jumped at the opportunity to join the MA&I team at Synoptek.

Scott Simard, Mergers & Acquisitions Strategist at Synoptek

I had the pleasure to work with John during my time at Synoptek. I found John to be extremely professional and passionate about the company and his role within the company. John was always one of the guys that I could count on to get stuff done! He excelled in his organizational skills and being solutions driven. I truly enjoyed my time working with John and would recommend him to anyone that asked. He would make a great asset to any company!

Craig Brechner, CEO, Investor and Operator of Technology Companies

John’s organizational skills and adherence to “logical” process permits him to get multiple projects done, and correctly completed, the first time. His competencies include extensive technical knowledge, but he never loses touch with the overall business objective and perhaps most importantly the goals of the organization. His understanding of how business processes and people relate to technology has made him a critical asset in his MA&I role. He took diverse processes, culture and technology platforms and quickly organized everything into a cohesive set of high-performance units.

Michael Brinks, Director of Marketing at Synoptek

John is a consummate professional. His business acumen, the way he handles difficult situations, his treatment of others (whether it be those who report to him, clients, or C level executives) is above reproach. He excels at developing meaningful relationships with clients, delivering strategic solutions that meet the need (both in the moment and in the future roadmaps he develops) whilst keeping the most important factor in play...being a TRUSTED advisor, is an amazing skill he possesses. That is a HARD role to play, and John does it with aplomb.

Clark Cunningham, Senior CTO at Synoptek

I have had the privilege of working with John for the last several years at Critigen/Synoptek. John is one of the most respected individuals in the company. His technical knowledge is unsurpassed. He also has a unique ability to bridge the gap between technology and business drivers. This allows John to not only represent correct technical recommendations but also justify technical investments by non-technical decision-makers. He represents quite well at executive and technical levels. John sets a great example within the company. He has a great work ethic. John is a great leader and Synoptek employees are happy that he is on our team.

Martin Gossen, Sales Executive at Synoptek

I've had the pleasure of working with John for just over 3 years now and through several departmental and company mergers. “I think that counts as 10 work years.” John has always been a go-to person for various technical and business acumen, but also because he is a very approachable and grounded. Even after all the challenges we have faced through new clients, company acquisitions, and strategies, his dedication to motivating and educating his colleagues and managers is commendable. If you are hiring for success, then you want to get in touch with John.

Jeff Shanklin, Director Product Management at Synoptek

Over the past 5 years, I have had the tremendous opportunity to work with John on a number of projects. His ability to manage complex issues and find creative solutions to security, networking implementation & management issues is outstanding. He provides his customers and peers with a technical resource second to none. More important than his technical proficiencies, John is a gentleman who treats people with respect and integrity!

Jim Hoyt, Cofounder, President at IP Silver

The simple fact is the John is a game changer for any organization. Today, John is a powerhouse of business insight, trends, and strategy; a wiz with financials and contract nuances; a manager of people and projects who inspires, leads, organizes… and gets things done. Earlier in his career, John was a bona fide information technology genius with a breadth and depth of knowledge I’ve only seen in a couple of other people. Bottom line: you want him on your team.

Jonathan Cornwell, Cofounder, Direct of Marketing at X2Delta

John has provided a wide range of IT consulting services to Teachers-Teachers.com for the past ten years. He is a master of many skill sets including network/system administration, programming and desktop support. He built out and managed our entire IT infrastructure and maintained a 99.99% uptime. John handles himself very professionally and is very detail-oriented. His wide range of knowledge was a great asset to our company as we built out our IT dept. I strongly recommend John Moyles.

Brett Spodak, CEO, Owner of Teachers-Teachers.com

I had the pleasure of working with John over the course of 2 years and would welcome the chance to work with him again. Reliable, results-oriented, and wickedly funny are terms that come to mind when I recall our working relationship. If you are looking for a highly-capable, self-motivated and accountable techno-geek-with-a-personality, you should call John.

T.J. Chandler, Managing Director APAC at Gigya

I've worked with John on many projects over the past 5 -plus years. John has proven to be a fantastic asset to our company (as Breckenridge Communications and now as Red Door Interactive) and different project teams, bringing deep expertise and spot-on execution.
I consider John to be one of our best sources when it comes to our most important technical projects - from overall architecture, down to the most critical line of code. I am always comfortable when he's on board a project team and I highly recommend John for any type of technical effort.

If you want to get your job done with a solution that is state-of-the-art, practical, and cost-effective, then John should be your choice. He has an uncanny ability to find the right logic, very quickly.
Did I mention that he is brilliant without arrogance?

Reid Cornwell, Chief Scientist/Director at The Center for Internet Research

Get In Touch.

Feel free to reach out to me directly using the phone number or email address shown below!